[fanfic] armistice day
Title: armistice day
Fandom: Pokémon
Summary: He returns broken, and they dutifully give of themselves to repair him, erasing the borderlines they'd drawn.
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Angst, Romance, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort.
Warnings: graphic sexual situations, language, self-harm, suicide.
armistice day
By the time he woke up, it was all over.
The first thing he tried to do was grab for the familiar weight of the poké balls at his waist that, under normal circumstances, would habitually twitch against his skin as a reminder of his neglectfulness.
When nothing happened, he slowly connected the dots.
A Viridian hospital room. The pale blue smock that hung loosely off his skeletal frame. The IV tubes that became increasingly tangled when he brought a shuddering hand to rub his burning eyes while clutching at his aching thigh muscle with the other. The clinical cold that nipped at his skin, decidedly less severe than the unrelenting mountain air he had grown accustomed to.
Legendary boy-champions do not disappear off the peak of a mountain when defeated, not even when their heirs apparent throw off their façades of invincibility in a manner that makes it seem laughably simple.
No, they fall.
It's more poetic that way, after all.
When his mother came to see him two days later (years of seclusion had left him a half-remembered enigma, and it didn't help that his ID had been lost in the fall, either), her smile was relieved enough to sharpen the ache (where are my pokémon?) that the painkillers couldn't quite dull the edge off of. She held him and cried onto his angular chest, warm moisture pooling in the thin fabric of his smock.
The first thing he told her was: "I'm the lowest of all things in existence."
Her response was to cry even harder, manicured nails digging into rail-thin arms.
- . . . -
The apartment has been vacated recently, but Red feels as if it has always been empty.
He sleeps away the days and wakes at nights, navigating the wide space of the suite (easily purchased with all the earnings his mother had dutifully saved over the years) in the dark without turning on a single light. Sometimes, he will wander out the door and into the city, limping down Viridian's almost-empty streets. No one bothers him, and even the ever-eager trainers know better than to challenge a husk like him. When he returns to the apartment he always meanders into one of the smaller rooms, and it is then that he takes enough care to flick on a light. In the flickering yellow light, his crimson eyes trace the familiar outline of the shattered remnants.
It is a shrine.
Red chases memories of his fallen comrades.
- . . . -
"This isn't healthy, you know."
It is meant as a statement, not a question. He ignores Green, who is staring at him from across the room. It has been three weeks since Red was released from the hospital, and he still hasn't grown used to the absence of the twitches at his waist, the familiar weight on his shoulder. He feels bare, weak, even with Pikachu just two feet away from him, staring at him with dark eyes brimming with concern.
He turns away, but can still feel the weight of Green's eyes on his back. Green stares at him a lot, these days, though it's not out of any particular fondness on his part. It's like he can't take his eyes off Red anymore, afraid that if he closes his eyes for a second too long Red might disappear (like before). Red thinks that if either of them were still close enough to be touchy-feely, Green might even go as far as physically holding him, a hand clutching the small of his back, the other in his hair, fingers struggling to feel each and every dull strand. But they aren't, so Green doesn't. Still, Red can't hope but think that Green could do so even if he didn't permit it, because he no longer possesses the means to deny Green anything anymore.
For a boy who had traveled the world, one would expect the constant pain in his thigh (the agony of dead muscle) would make him feel caged. Like his freedom had been stripped away.
Yet it doesn't.
An able body is only useful as long as there is something to be done with it. There were many things to do with it, once, and so Red used it, exceeding every expectation they placed on him in the process. But the championship was his anchor, and without it he is weightless, drifting through the air without aim. He has seen everything there is to see, knows enough to ease his adventurer's mind into idleness. Besides, the pain isn't intense enough to prevent him from getting around (and considering that he had fallen off a fucking mountain, his body could have endured a far worse punishment), and for someone like Red, that is enough.
He supposes that he should be grateful that Pikachu is still with him, that the challenger had been able to grab them both before they fell to their deaths, but Red still mourns the others. His team, his friends, his family. The boy had not been able to nab five poké balls out of the air before they smashed into the side of the mountain, shattering to pieces and killing their inhabitants. It is this absence that pains Red the most-an agony that far surpasses the one in his leg.
The truth be told, Red would rather his head be the part of his body that slammed into the side of the mountain as he fell if it meant that his pokémon had survived in his place.
"Why are you living here on your own?" Green asks, and Red becomes aware, distantly, of how much his rival has changed over the past few years. Green, once arrogant and resentful, has been humbled, stripped bare, and recreated as this concerned young man-still tenacious, but in a different manner.
"I know that it has to be hard for you, what with your leg and all. Why not let your mom help you? I mean, at least until you're fully recovered. It's only been a few weeks since you got out of the hospital."
"Because I want to be alone."
There is silence, and then Green mutters something about coming back the next day and makes his way out, understanding the thinly veiled message in his response.
It's a half-lie. Red does not want to be surrounded by other people and their pity-they focus too much on his leg and not his failure as a trainer, and he cannot bear that. Green understands; after all, he is a trainer too. But there is something about Green setting foot in this Spartan apartment that makes Red think of conflicts-the entire space, a testament to the dead, rebels against his presence, against every step he takes in this hallowed ground. Unlike Red, Green is still very much alive, and sacred ground is not meant to be profaned by those that do not understand.
- . . . -
It is Leaf that discovers the shrine.
She had returned to Kanto as soon as she heard the news and had refused to leave ever since. She comes into the house almost as often as Green does, sometimes with him, sometimes on alternating days of the week. Unlike Green, who steps into the apartment bearing grocery lists and cleaning supplies, Leaf stomps in aimlessly, chattering incessantly about nothings and somethings (everythings) that have become nothings to Red now. It is her way of trying to normalize things and fill the empty spaces, and he allows her the illusion, staring out the window overlooking the alleyway where he saw a drug deal going down, once.
There hasn't been a quiet moment between the two of them since she came back, and she has never visited him at night. Red had thought that those things were constants. He was wrong.
He doesn't hear her come into the apartment, but this is how he imagines it:
She climbs the stairs to the thirteenth floor and reaches under the mat for the spare key Green left there. The door, newly oiled, does not creak as she opens it. It is dark, but the light from the hallway chases some of the darkness away while casting even longer shadows within. She squints her eyes in the dark, wondering if he is asleep, but then she notices the yellow light flittering under the door she's never entered, the one Green always avoids when cleaning and that Red stares at sometimes when he's ignoring her. When she turns the knob, she gasps and that is when Red notices her.
It is not a particularly shocking sight. Only a boy sitting cross-legged in the middle of an empty room, inspecting shards of red and white in the murky yellow light. Still, she says nothing, watching him from the doorway-an interloper, an outsider.
Annoyance overruns the numbness. Why isn't she saying anything? After days and days of mind-numbing talk, now she's gone silent? Fine, then. If she doesn't want to speak, he will. He raves about how it feels to fall off the top of the world, about how it feels to have your leg thrashed against frigid rock at terminal velocity, how despite the roaring of the wind in his ears, he had still been able to hear Pikachu's terrorized screaming, how his eyes had almost frozen over but he'd still been able to see those spheres, those fucking precious spheres, slam against the rock and shatter. How he'd screamed, wanted to reach the bottom but then that boy, that damn usurper had swooped down on his foreign pokémon and plucked him out of the sky and he'd thrashed and squirmed because he wanted to die, damn it, why wouldn't they let him -
Leaf makes a sound in the back of her throat and suddenly she is lunging across the room, lips pressed against his and opening greedily, hungrily (desperately). Their eyes are open, dusty hazel meeting muted crimson, and she exhales into his mouth, as if trying to breathe life back into him.
But he won't have that. He snarls and surges forward on his bare feet, pinning her to the floor. In the wavering yellow light, he takes her harshly, tearing into her with his loneliness and self-loathing. For years, up on that mountain, he had held these desires at bay. He had learned to dissect them, suppress them, bury them in training and battling. But now, confronted with a willing sacrifice, his hormones blaze and his hatred finds an outlet, and he falls prey to those stunted desires at last.
And at that end, when sweat and desperation cloys in the air like smoke, she gasps: "Green!"
The air is knocked out of him-it sounds like Leaf is crying for help.
He rolls off her and retreats to a corner, turning his face away. He does not notice how her face changes, tightening in remorse. She collects her torn clothes and slips out the door as silently as she came, and he knows that she won't be back, that she'll keep this secret.
Eventually, Pikachu enters the room, whimpering and cooing and rubbing his face against Red's arm. It is then that he realizes that he is laughing, the tears falling down his face in rivers and pooling on the hardwood floor.
- . . . -
One night, when he is idly wondering the streets, he stumbles upon that alleyway he sees from his window. It is empty tonight, save for a man reclining on the brick wall of the opposite apartment building, smoking a cigarette. Red stands there under the streetlight at the mouth of the alley, not quite hesitating, but considering. When the man turns his flat gaze onto him, Red takes a step forward, then another, and another until he is standing a few feet away from him.
The man smiles at him with crooked, yellowed teeth. Red remains expressionless, digs out a wad of bills from his pocket and presses it into the man's grimy palms. In return, he receives two bags filled with little tablets. He inspects them warily. Noticing this, the man reassures him in almost soothing tones. "It's great, kid," he says through that jaundiced smile, "You'll love it."
In way of response, he opens one of the baggies and takes one of the tablets between his index and middle fingers, lifts it to his lips, and dry swallows. The man laughs as Red pockets the bags and walks back to his building.
His vision is already swimming by the time he stumbles back into the apartment. He tries to go back to the room, the shrine, but he stumbles, a combination of both the toxins swimming in his brain and his leg, which he realizes he can't feel anymore. He falls back onto his back and stares at the darkened ceiling, dancing with colors and faces that speak to him in alternatingly soothing, hushed tones and accusing, guttural ones. He laughs and he cries, moisture leaking from his red-rimmed eyes and running into his hair. But most of all, he stops thinking, and for a boy who has forever been trapped in conversing with his own thoughts rather than with others, it is a welcome relief.
- . . . -
In the morning the light shines through the window, too brilliant and blinding for Red, who is used to the darkness. He usually draws the curtains to avoid the morning light, but he must have forgotten last night. His hands scramble for purchase on the grubby floor, his head pounding and mouth dry, and the nausea comes too quickly so he rolls over and throws up on the floor, almost choking on his own acid and bile. When he's done, he rolls back onto his back and resumes staring at the ceiling, eyes squinting against the light.
He doesn't know how long it is until the door opens and Green is standing there, all harsh questions and hands that won't stop touching him. Red wants to be left on the floor with the waste, but Green grabs him under his armpits and forces him up, supporting most of his weight as they make their way to the bedroom, where he is thrown on the bed. Hands pull at his shoes, unbutton his jeans, ease down the zipper, then pull at the hem of his shirt. Red lets himself be undressed, still in a state of halves (half awareness, half delirium), and when those hands tucks him in, Pikachu and Eevee curling at his side protectively, he hears Green's sigh as he leaves the room to clean up after him.
Later, Red sits up in bed, eyes stinging and bare skin itching, listening to them arguing in the next room.
"I can't take it anymore! Why does he have to make things so fucking difficult all the time? We spend months tracking him down, months, and suddenly he shows up, half-dead, and none of what we did means anything!" Leaf screams.
"We didn't find him in time," Green replies simply, and Red can hear the regret in his voice, the weight of responsibility.
There is a shift, and Leaf's voice is broken by shaky sobs. "I-if I hadn't traveled as much… if I had stayed and helped you search, then, then… maybe we could've found him in time."
Green shushes her gently. "It's not your fault, it's not your fault. We didn't even know if he was still in the region. You did the best you could, baby, we both did."
Then Leaf is crying in earnest, sobs heartbroken and halting, and Green keeps talking in soothing whispers and Red wonders if anyone will catch him if he jumps off his balcony, right now.
When the thought passes, his hand makes a fist in the sheets and he pulls himself up, wincing when the pain in his leg reasserts itself. Eevee and Pikachu shift with him, eying him concernedly, tails drooping at the sounds coming from the other room. Slowly, painstakingly, Red gets to his feet and peers into the other room from the doorframe.
It is the way that they hold each other that gives them away-Leaf is bowed into Green, face buried in the crook of his neck as sobs shake her body, and Green holds her close, a hand stroking her chestnut hair and the other running down her back in soothing circles. Green's head rests on top of Leaf's, eyes closed. Red was away for a long time, but he still remembers how people hold each other when they love each other, and it's so fucking obvious now. He remembers that Leaf and Green used to hate each other when they were children, the taunts and insults exchanged venomously whenever they saw each other's face, and Red thinks that this must have happened while was gone.
There is a lump in his throat that he can't seem to swallow, his mouth still so dry. Green notices him, forest eyes locking onto his from across the room over Leaf's crumpled form. His former rival's eyes shine with fury, and Red recognizes that Green is not as changed as he used to think-the old impossible fire shines beneath the forest, somehow coexisting with it, strengthening it, a fast forward of death and seeding and rebirth.
Red knows what he wants from him, but he doesn't know how to give it to them…
He never has.
- . . . -
He is used to being in control of his own destiny since he was ten-years-old, but it seems that this is not the case anymore.
It begins like this (or perhaps that is the wrong way to say it, because it truly begins on a summer day in Pallet's rolling hills, three children laughing and holding hands and playing pretend Pokémon Masters together, dreaming under the setting sun).
So, it happens like this:
One moment Red is lying alone in the dark, waiting for his legs to twitch and lead him out the door and out into the empty streets; the next, Green and Leaf are there, lying next to him, and they're naked.
And Leaf is pushing him back down on the bed when he tries to get himself back up, pressing his lips against his again, except differently this time. The kiss speaks of patience long exhausted, of devotion able to move mountains.
"Let us be here for you, Red," Leaf mutters, breath feather-light against his lips. "We weren't before, but we've found each other at last."
"We?" Red chokes out.
And then there is a familiar hand gripping his, and Leaf eases back so that he can turn his head to find Green, reclining against the headboard stiffly, eyes avoiding his. Red thinks that maybe Green doesn't want this; that he's just here to give his grudging blessing to whatever Leaf has planned, but then he eases himself down on the bed and presses a closed-mouth kiss to his forehead.
"Yeah," Green says softly, voice affirming.
He lies there limply, between the two of them, expecting it to be suffocating and rough and terrible, but he's wrong, so, so wrong. They ease themselves into position around him, and Red's hands twitch at the sensation, curling around Leaf's neck and pulling her closer, surprising the both of them.
Green comes first, ever their unwilling follower, hips jerking to a shuddering lull. The sensation is strange, but Leaf pulls him back to the situation, kissing away his concern with her perfect mouth. When she comes, she says the right name this time, a hushed 'Red' issuing from her lips in relief. When she tightens around him, Red issues forth a choked cry and follows suit.
Leaf sighs deeply and wraps her arms around his abdomen, pulling him close, and Green presses kisses to his shoulders. Each touch, each caress, carries the same message, and Red understands, almost.
We're here again; we're never letting go.
- . . . -
The apartment begins housing two more after that; Leaf never had any baggage to begin with, but Green begins to bring more and more of his things over, abandoning the little, practical apartment that is two blocks away from the gym.
Green cooks and cleans every day, muttering complaints under his breath while he does so, usually after getting home from the gym, their sole source of income. Leaf promises that she'll get a job soon over their meals, but she usually just lazes around the house, watching TV and clinging to Red, inhaling his smell and forcing him to inhale hers. It is not unpleasant, Red realizes.
Their meals are usually the only times when they are all together besides late nights and early mornings, Green home from work and Leaf's incorrigible hunger driving her to the dining room table, Red in tow. Red is only used to eat when he absolutely had to, usually once every two or three days, accustomed to rationing his food from years in the wilderness, but Green cooks breakfast, lunch, and dinner, even prepares little snacks for the two of them before he goes to work to last them until his lunch break. But Leaf goes out on shopping trips of her own and returns with bags and bags of junk food that she eats out of the container, and the snacks go ignored until her hunger drives her to eat them.
They are careful about letting their pokémon out in front of him, both aware of the root of his illness, so they limit themselves to one. Green leaves the rest of his team at the gym, bringing only Eevee home, and Leaf lets Ditto slink about the space, failing to become unrecognizable in its imitations of domestic items, unaccustomed to them.
Red does not visit the shrine anymore. It's not because he does not want to, but a lack of opportunity. Leaf has not told Green of that night, so he remains unaware of the shrine's existence, but Red will not visit the room unless he is alone, and these days, he never is. He changes: hair regaining a shine it had not known for years and cheeks growing fuller, bones disappearing behind skin and muscle. Sometimes he looks in the mirror and wonders if this is alright; growing again when his companions are forever frozen in place on that godforsaken mountain. The guilt gnaws away at him from the inside out, invisible to the others, but just as tangible as the hole in his leg to him.
But Green and Leaf carry on, undeterred. For years they had searched for him, and after disappointment after disappointment, heartache after heartache, they had finally found him again, and they hold on the only way they know how. Red finds this out by reading subtexts, because Leaf and Green do not like talking about the intervening years of Leaf-and-Green, instead turning their attention to making Leaf-and-Red-and-Green work out. Yet sometimes, when the two bicker and settle into an uncomfortable silence on either side of him at night, Red wonders how they ever worked out without him to act as a buffer between their ruthless convictions, their passion that would just as easily throttle as kiss and caress. He realizes, then, that Leaf and Green have carried this chip in their shoulders in the shape of a boy for years, and they both need him as much as they've come to need each other.
So he goes on with the uncomfortable knowledge that they love him, and as time passes, he realizes that he loves them back. It's easy to love Leaf, with her devotion and beauty and kindness, tempered by the years that she's spent longing for him. It's harder with Green, years of bitter rivalry hanging over their heads like an unrelenting, half-forgotten ghost, but Green has always been a stationary vertex of their triangle-while they traveled, he stayed. Green is used to being left behind, so he watches from the sidelines most of the time, only entering the developing dynamic when Leaf beckons to him, needy.
So Red allows himself to love them back, a trickle of emotion from a long-frozen glacier. Still, he wonders when, like before, this fragile union will burst at the seams.
- . . . -
The breaking point comes in late winter.
Green and Leaf had been so focused on diverting his energies into each other's bodies and presences that they had not realized what was happening, and Red had never been cruel enough to point out the central flaw in their carefully constructed dynamic.
Red has a one-track mind; it is the reason behind how he became Champion, why he went to Mt. Silver to train, why he eased the tablet onto his tongue and swallowed. While their love and efforts were directed toward preventing his sublimation, they failed to realize that those thoughts had never truly left his mind, the guilt chipping away at the tenuous connections between the three of them.
When Red sneaks out of bed that night, it takes Green a few minutes to notice, blinking blearily in the darkness, roused awake by his cooling skin. When he reaches over to tap Leaf on the shoulder, she jumps into action, running down the hall and to that half-forgotten room. Her heart nearly stops when she catches sight of the yellow light crawling from under the door, but when Green stands next to her, they push the door open together.
Green has never seen the shrine before, so his eyes are transfixed by the cloying dust, the absence of color. But Leaf is the one that looks to the floor, notices the cornucopia of pills strewn across the floor, and Red, lying at the center, holding the shards to his chest in a limp hand.
- . . . -
By the time he woke up, it was all over.
The first thing he tried to do was grab for the familiar weight of the poké balls at his waist that, under normal circumstances, would habitually twitch against his skin as a reminder of his neglectfulness.
Instead, he finds himself in a Viridian hospital room, a pale blue smock that's a size too small stretched tight over his chest, and IV tubes curled around his body like an ekans around its prey. Red almost laughs-it's almost as if he's at the beginning of this hell all over again.
"I can't do this anymore," Leaf says from the foot of his bed, and time reasserts itself.
"I'm sorry," Red replies simply, but he means it.
Leaf nods, sucking in breath shakily. "I know you are," she says, pardoning him. "I should have known that they were more important to you than the two of us," she laughs humorlessly, "I guess I always did, ever since the day you first picked Pikachu up and started your adventure…"
Red says nothing, because it's true at the same time that it's not. He loves his companions, even now, more than anything; they gave him everything he had ever dreamed of and more, and their absence will always haunt him. But he is who he is because of Leaf and Green as much as because of his pokémon; he loves them, he just doesn't know how to be a trainer at the same time. He is always pulled in both directions-to the grave, and to life, and they tear him into pieces if he tries to be both.
"Well," Leaf says, clearing her throat. "I'm gonna leave for a while, maybe move out. I don't know i-, when I'll be coming back…"
Red nods, understanding that even despite how much Leaf loves her boys, she loves her freedom just as much. Staying here, adding stability to their otherwise volatile chemistry experiment, has drained her, and that too was something Red noticed in those months of trying for them.
He closes her eyes when she leans in and presses a kiss to his temple. She lingers for a moment, then pulls away and walks out of the room without looking back.
- . . . -
But on the day that he is released from the hospital, Green is waiting for him outside. Because they have known each other since childhood, Red recognizes the signs of anger lingering beneath the surface of his skin-the hunched shoulders, the set jaw, the way he keeps kicking at the dirt. Red walks up to him, stands there for a few moments, waiting for Green to collect his thoughts.
And falls to the ground when the other man's fist meets his face, his bad leg unable to keep him up from the force of the punch. People stare, some looking like they are about to come over to intervene, but they recognize their gym leader and stay where they are, observing uncomfortably.
"Pills!" Green screams, fists clenched. Red wonders if he's going to hit him again. "What the… I can't believe…" a scream of frustration rips from Green's throat, and Red watches through half-lidded eyes, cheek beginning to sting. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You think you're the only person who's ever lost their pokémon?" unbidden memories of Green at Pokémon Tower, eyes rimmed with red, flit through Red's mind, and he understands. "You don't just… stay down and drag everyone with you. You keep going!"
Green keeps glaring at him and then storms away. Shakily, Red gets to his feet and follows him, barely able to keep up with the other man's pace with the pain in his thigh suddenly flaring up. After minutes of following him into a park, Green huffs and sits down on a bench by a great oak tree. When he catches up, Red hesitantly does the same.
Moments pass in silence before Green speaks again, voice controlled. "Leaf came by this morning and took what little stuff she had laying around the apartment. She'll be back, though. She just needs some time to herself…"
Red stares at a group of children playing with their pokémon, happy and carefree as their mothers watch. He thinks on how far they've fallen, the three of them-once ready to take the world by storm, now the lowest things in existence.
"Do you know what people used to tell the two of us while you were gone?" Green doesn't wait for his response. "They used to say that we were idiots, chasing after someone that didn't want to be found. You know, most people thought you were dead, and it looked like Leaf and I were just searching for a ghost to a lot of people. Like gramps," Green looks at him out of the corner of his eyes. "Though he always knew where you were, didn't he?"
He thinks that Green is about to rehash their long history-how Oak always favored Red, called him a prodigy and ignored his own orphaned grandson. That had always been the elephant in the room with their friendship, and no matter how much Red felt guilty for it, he knew that no amount of apologizing would make up for the years Green spent feeling alone and unwanted. Yet this time, Green just sighs, and Red realizes for the first time that Green knows what it's like to be lonely too. Not in the same way that Red does, but in a similar enough way that he understands what it's like.
"But, you know, nothing they said could have made us stop. Looking for you kept you alive, filled that space where you should have been," Green laughs self-deprecatingly, childhood defense mechanism alive and well. "I was never good enough for Leaf, anyway."
"She loves you," Red says quietly.
Green snorts, looks at Red in the eyes. "Yeah, but not the same way she loves you. I could never get her to stay. You did."
The silence stretches between them again, and when Green clears his throat and faces him again, Red meets his gaze. "Losing you was a lot like what you're going through now, except Leaf and I turned to each other instead of doing all the self-destructive shit you're doing. We all chase memories in one way or another, Red. You're not the only one that needs to honor the ones you've lost."
Red's eyes widen, the only indication that whatever Green has said has had an impact. He remembers his pokémon-Charizard and his bravery, Blastoise and his mischievous streak, Venasaur's kindness, and the way Snorlax's body heat kept him warm in the coldness of the cave, Lapras' songs filling the frigid air like a lullaby. He remembers the days they spent together, reminded of how happy they made him, and accepts what he's been afraid to all along:
They wouldn't want him to grieve them this way. They'd want him to keep on going, striving to be the best, as they always have.
The tears rush to his eyes and blur his vision, and for the first time in years, Red cries. Green does nothing, staring up at the sky. But when Red looks at him and imagines what he would look like fifty years later, he imagines the three of them, sitting somewhere, holding hands and touching and chasing each other's troubles away. It's a beautiful sight, and before he knows what he's doing, Red is leaning in to meet Green's lips, startling the other man slightly. After a moment, Green wraps his arms around Red, holding him close, preventing him from leaving, and Red revels in the thought of belonging.
- . . . -
They bury the pieces, that night. When Red asked him for help, Green had bit his lip, but nodded quickly enough, grabbing a shovel from the closet (something he'd brought over when he moved in, just in case), and the two made for the Viridian Forest. Red holds every shard in his hands, surprised by how heavy they feel, weighed down by the lives they once carried.
When they reach a clearing, Red eases himself to the ground, leg aching, and Green gets to digging. Eevee and Pikachu watch from a good distance away, giving their trainers a wide enough berth so that they can each grieve in their own ways. After a few minutes, Green finishes and climbs his way out of the hole, and Red painstakingly gets to his feet, takes a few steps and, after a moment of just staring, drops the pieces in, one by one. He does not cry (once in a decade is enough, he thinks), even when Green asks if he wants a moment, or has any words to say.
"There's nothing to say," Red replies, eyes closed. "We chose each other, lived together, fought together… such bonds don't need any parting words."
Green nods, but when he grabs the shovel, Red raises a hand to still him. Confused, Green pauses, and when Red grabs for the shovel, he looks at him as if he were crazy. Otherwise, he does not protest, taking a step back, watching as Red steels himself, scoops the first mound of dirt, and lets it fall into the hole in the earth, watching the glinting shards become hidden from the moonlight. He keeps going, scooping slowly, carefully, leaning on his good leg. He does not fall, or falter, and Green thinks again on how strong Red is beneath that brittle exterior.
When the earth is level again, Red stumbles back in exhaustiom, but Green is there to catch him, arms wrapping around his torso, head buried in his hair. He allows himself to be held, allows Green's hands to lead him away from the grave.
"Do you know what happens to them… when the balls breaks like that?" Red ask over the lump in his throat. He has been afraid to know, afraid to ask, fearing that it had been the most painful thing in the world for them.
But Green absolves him, speaking against the hairs at the nape of his neck, just underneath his cap. "Gramps did some research on that… what basically happens is that the dimension that the poké ball creates for them to be held in collapses. The closest I can come to describing it is as if the world suddenly exploded. It's quick... too quick for them to have known what was going on," he presses a hesitant kiss to the back of Red's neck. "Painless."
Red lets out a breath he didn't even know he was holding in, and his legs finally give out completely, pulling Green down to the ground with him. The grass is wet with the dew of the early morning. He pulls himself off Green, falling onto his back and looking up at the moon. It is full tonight, and it is beautiful, Red thinks. For the first time in a while, he's almost happy that he still exists, if only because he can see this moon, feel this catharsis, lie here with Green.
Green has never been the initiator. It had always been Leaf. He is unaccustomed to this, to wanting him, so he settles for grasping Red's hand. When Pikachu and Eevee trot over, settling on their chests, Red realizes that he's alive, that he still exists, these sensations the only proof he needs.
- . . . -
It's a cloudy morning that greets them when they wake up the next day. Despite the fact that there is more space in the bed now, they stick to their spots. They cannot breach the borderlines of Leaf's territory, especially in her absence. He hears Green mumble something about getting up and making coffee, and if Red wants him to make any for him. Red shakes his head against Green's chest, and the other boy sighs and pulls away, muttering about getting to work on time for a change.
Red stays in bed, hand stretching out to find Pikachu amidst the covers, but stops cold when he hears the sound of shattered glass coming from the kitchen. Startled, he tunnels his way out from under the covers, knocking into Pikachu and Eevee on the way. He limps his way down the hall and into the kitchen, rubbing the grit out of his eyes hurriedly.
"L-Leaf…" Green says, shocked, and Red finds that it is indeed Leaf, standing in the kitchen, clutching some kind of shape, wrapped in blankets, to her chest, observing the two of them silently. "I thought you-,"
"I got as far as Vermillion City," Leaf says with a small shake of the shoulders. "I must have stood at the ticket booth for hours… just wondering where to go. Couldn't decide, I guess…"
They stand there, three pieces of an ill-fitting puzzle. Red thinks of their childhood, of the day Leaf moved in and Green was territorial, wanting nothing to do with her. Circumstances are different now-Red is pretty certain that they both want her here, this time-but he doesn't know how to go about putting the pieces back together, how to erase the borderlines they'd drawn between them that had persisted since they were ten-years-old, even despite the closeness of the past few months. By the looks of it, Green doesn't either, so Leaf clears her throat and removes the blankets, revealing the russet surface of a poké egg. Red suddenly finds it hard to breathe.
"I found it on my way to port," Leaf offers by way of explanation, "And I really couldn't stop thinking about the two of you," she takes a few steps toward Red, who hovers in the doorway, struck speechless. "I don't know if it's still too soon, but maybe we can keep it? You know, as a fresh start, or something incredibly corny like that."
She holds the egg out to Red, a peace offering, and the former Champion just stares at it blankly. When Green's hand gently grabs Red's and brings it to rest on the smooth surface of the egg, they could both feel the warmth coming from inside the shell-a sign of new life, of new beginnings.
Red swallows hard, looks up from the egg, and meets Leaf's eyes, which brim with something that looks a lot like hope. Beside him, Green's other hand settles over Leaf's, his other giving Red's an encouraging squeeze. Shakily, he nods, taking the egg and holding it close.
For a moment, Leaf stares at him, her lips pressed into a thin, hesitant line. Then, she smiles, pulling the two of them close. Green lets out a sigh of relief, and Red closes his eyes, their body heat lulling him into a sense of comfort and security he hadn't allowed himself to feel since they were children.
It has been a long time coming, this armistice day. But it has been worth it, because sometimes, borderlines are meant to be wiped out to bring about new beginnings.
This time, they will truly take the world by storm.
Together.